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38 – Garden Tomb

The Garden Tomb (map)is the exact opposite of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher: open, inviting, lovely, unadorned. If you’re not obsessed with liturgical relics, you can’t help but believe that this is the real tomb where Jesus was buried.

Discovered by Charles Gordon in 1884, it lies just north of the Old City wall of Jerusalem. It features a cliff with skull-like features nearby, a tomb, a lush garden, winepress and more. It is owned by an Evangelical Christian group out of England.

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We had a communion service in seating area #4. It was lovely!A Korean group was carrying on their service in seating area #2 or maybe #1. They were getting into it pretty good, and singing familiar tunes – although in their native language.

Our guide was top-notch. Kinda funny to hear a British accent in Jerusalem.His

A skull.

Look! Another skull!

Both skulls.Actually, considerable erosion has taken place over the years. Back when Gordon found it, it did look a lot more like a skull. And who knows what it looked like 2,000 years ago.

There are lots of places in the area to sit, relax, meditate and have a service.

Our guide, once again, emphasizing that regardless of which tomb you feel is the ‘real’ tomb, both tombs are empty!

The tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. We think.

Voila – an empty tomb.The area on the left is where a body would have been laid.

Amen!

I don’t know if this rose came from Sharon, but it was pretty.(The leaves deliberately obscure the sun-lit face of the rose. I’m trying to be poetic here, but I don’t know if I pulled it off.)